Tisha B’av

I wish all of our readers around the globe, along with the entire nation of Yisrael*, an easy, healthy, and meaningful fast with the right emotional balance. Hopefully I will meet you all soon at the Redemption.

*Please send this around to everyone you know so that we really can wish everybody well.

Waking up this morning was a real shock to the system. It hit me, suddenly. Today is Friday. The fast is in 48 hours– less, even. Somehow, I didn’t think I’d still be here. Moshiach, where are you? We were supposed to meet yesterday!

That’s the one hard thing of constant belief and optimism, of still being a complete Maamin no matter what. You will get let down. And it hurts. If you intensely believe that the Redemption will come that day, watching the sun go down can shatter you. Even as you think, ‘so tomorrow, then,’ a voice says, ‘why not today?’ Even as you say ‘there’s one more weekday until Tisha b’Av,’ it’s easy to think, ‘we’re running out of time. We had a week and now we have a day.’

I don’t give up. Even when a car horn in the silence makes me stiffen and my heart pound. Even when there’s Shofar blowing somewhere in the building, and someone jokingly yells ‘Moshiach,’ and even as you scowl for them making fun of something so sacred, you wonder if they could be right. And you cry when they’re not.

This turned into a very long good morning. But you understand, don’t you? What it’s like to have a shattered spirit but still cling to hope. One can’t always just say, ‘So if not today, then tomorrow,’ with a smile. If the ‘not today’ doesn’t cause pain, where will you get the strength for the ‘tomorrow?’ Sometimes, the roller coaster of hope and despair gets the better of me.

But today, I’ll go down fighting. Moshiach won’t just randomly show up. He’s waiting for us to bring him in.

I wasn’t going to write about this more. I commented on it yesterday, and honestly, the topics here hit us all in such raw places that I was scared to say something.

But I cried last night for a long time. Even as I wondered if these are the final footsteps of the Redemption (today! today!), I cried for the cost they came at. I cried for someone who, were she living, I doubt I would have much to say to. She helped other Jews leave the fold, while I am, in my own small way, ‘in Kiruv’. But she had a Jewish soul. She had a soul, period. She was a tragic casualty in the crazy confused world we live in. And it burns me to the core.

I can’t help but compare it to the other precious souls we lost last year. Though they tried to hitchhike, no-one blames them or says that, heaven forbid, they deserve their fate. Here, people are saying that the ‘religious nuts must be so happy she got what she deserved’ for leaving. Looking at the levayah, I don’t think any Jew would actually believe that.

They were prayed for by millions. How many people prayed for her? Very few, because who knew?

They were mourned by the world. Her family and friends are mourning, but are we?

They brought us together and reminded us that we are stronger as a whole. What will we learn here?

Faigy Mayers is teaching us how vast and wide-spread that whole is. It’s time to bring our people back together, forever.

It’s too late to prevent our loss. But if we take it to heart, if we can all live peacefully, G-d will bring us home. So don’t be afraid to cry. You’re in good company.

I looked at the calender and saw that this year, the actual date of the ninth of Av is a Shabbat. The fast is on the tenth of Av this year. And that seemed really surreal to me. On the one hand, it’s the saddest day in the Jewish calendar year. Postponing the fast doesn’t change the date of all the sad things that happened. (Also see the rest of Chabad.org on the subject.) On the other hand, it’s Shabbat. We’re commanded to rejoice. Even if you can forget the date, the fast is lurking right around the corner, reminding you to drink plenty of water and not eat anything that will make you feel sick the next day.

And then I was thinking how if the Shabbat Project ever did another one this year, this would be the perfect week for it. But no, that would never happen. Something really drastic would have to happen for them to whip together a worldwide Shabbat campaign at such short notice. And then it brought me back to where I started.

Drastic things do happen. Like last year. And last year, we promised ourselves that this would be the last time we fasted and mourned. And I believed it. It seemed impossible to me that the world would not wake up and fix things. That we would not wake up and fix things. That I would not wake up and fix things.

Tisha b’Av scares me beacuse I’m scared of living in another year of Galus. We can’t last much longer. S0 G-d, who cares too much to give up on us, shakes us to wake us up before it’s too late. And those shakes HURT. Bombing, wars, mass antisemitism. We confuse the symptoms for the disease, but really, though life is calmer now, we’re still facing the same core problem. And already, we’re being shaking up again. Thank G-d, the bombs landed an unoccupied area. Thank G-d, nothing terrible happened during the protest in London.

But how much longer before we’re shaken up again? That’s what scares me, even more than seeing our nation fall more every day. These symptoms tell us how bad things are. But in and of themselves, they are sooo painful.

I’m not writing this to give up hope. Not at all. I may feel desperate, but I haven’t given up yet. If we take this message to heart, there will be no need to fear anymore. I know I say this every year, but it needs to be said again. G-d will keep on shaking us. And we will not give up.

Please help me. We’ve all made mistakes this year. But we’ve learned that we can come together, and the echos of last summer’s unity still live on. Wake them up!

אני מאמיןבאמונה שלמהבביאתהמשיח .ואף על פי שיתמהמה, עםכל זהאחכה לובכל היוםשיבוא I believe with complete faith in the coming of the Moshaich. Even if he delays, I wait for him every day.

It sounds so simple. But maybe if we truly believe this, it will be easier for us to take the final step forward in all our actions. If we remember this, that Moshiach is on our doorstep, that he is just waiting to know the time is right for him to enter…

Someone did something very kind for me today. I can’t tell you who it was, or what they did, or why. I was practically sworn into secrecy. But I still appreciate it and I still want to share this kindness with the world.

THANK YOU

Mim tells me that she’s getting scared for Tisha B’av. Every act like this helps us both feel a little better. (More on that soon.)